Physical Movement Checks

Physical Movement Checks

Getting students up and moving helps encourage involvement. It allows them the opportunity to share with—and get feedback from—their peers, while you can move around the room getting a sense for how many students really understand the content.

Here are a few examples of Physical Movement Checks for Understanding:

Decisions, Decisions (Philosophical Chairs)—Given a prompt, students go to the side of their chair that corresponds to their opinion on a topic. After sharing their reasoning and listening to others, students can change sides.

Inner/Outer Circles—Students form an inner and outer circle facing a partner. The teacher asks a question and the students are given time to respond to their partner. Next, the inner circle rotates one person to the left. The teacher asks another question and the cycle repeats itself.

Timed Pair Share—Given a prompt, students pair up and share their perspective for a given amount of time, taking turns talking and listening.

Word/Vocabulary Sorts—Given a set of vocabulary terms, students sort them into given categories or create their own categories for sorting.